Muddle-headed approach of Telangana Government

While the medical fraternity is continuing with trial and error methods in combating Covid-19 since there is no prescribed drug for the novel Coronavirus as yet, the political executive too seems to follow the same formula of trial and error and errors seem be on the higher side. They badly ignored warnings from the WHO and other experts that the second wave would strike and could be more dangerous than the first wave, the central and State governments including Telangana blinked and went ahead with implementing their political agenda.

The government claimed that the first wave had led to creation of excellent medical infrastructure and that now they were ready to face the challenge more effectively. This overconfidence has pushed the State into a sorry state of affairs.

While people and politicians threw all safety norms to winds, neither the respective governments nor the parties did anything to see that health protocols were followed. The Telangana government was firm in its stand that there was no need or situation that demands partial or complete lockdown.

It took a stand that lockdown would adversely affect the economy of the state. It also said that the worst affected would be the migrant labour and if they leave, it would be difficult to bring them back. This would affect sectors like agriculture and realty. But it hid the reality that 50 percent of them had already left.

What they were forced to accept before the court, they did not reveal to the general public. In fact, suppression of news has become order of day. It's an era of press notes. 'Write what we or get slapped' is the new norm of journalism.

Short-sightedness on the part of the administration led to a situation where people are struggling to get beds. While government hospitals are full, private hospitals are demanding advance payment of minimum of Rs one lakh per day before admitting any patient. Where has the so-called medical infrastructure gone no one knows.

What the government failed to realise was that medical infrastructure does not just mean creating beds. It means much more. The administrative machinery which should have guided the government in right direction also seems to have erred. People were made to believe that the State had given suggestions to the PM and within half an hour he called back to compliment them by saying 'what a suggestion!', while the ground realities here were different.

While patients are gasping for oxygen, Telangana government was gasping to arrest the rising graph of cases. In less then 48 hours of announcing that there would no lockdown of any kind, it had to announce lockdown and that too at a very short notice. What a flip-flop! Just like shortage of vaccine and oxygen, there is acute shortage of flow of data pertaining to Covid-19 and related information. 'If you cannot convince people, confuse them' seems to be the policy.

What's more, TS government feels that it is not possible to work out clear statistics in regard to number of cases in Telangana since many people from neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh were coming to Hyderabad and this had become a big headache as it adds to the number of positive cases. In these days of technology where world has become a global village can't the government have data of how many are from Telangana and how many have chosen the "Medical Hub" of India as destination for treatment? God please show some light.